Missing not?

I’ve always been rather suspicious of the CU’s enthusiasm for merging the three territorial posts – as expressed in the Unit’s bulletin of June 2003:

“The Constitution Unit warmly welcomes the creation of the new Department
of Constitutional Affairs, and the merger of the former Scotland Office and Wales into the new department. We have long called for further reorganisation in Whitehall to underpin the new constitutional settlement, and to tidy up loose ends. We have also said that if in ten years’ time there were still separate Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales, then devolution would have failed. So merging their offices is a step in the right direction.
In time it would be better if the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs became the devolution supremo as well as the constitutional supremo That is what the Lords Constitution Committee recommended in their report in January 2003, when they called for merger of the Scotland and Wales Offices, and one Cabinet Minister with responsibility for intergovernmental relations overall. It would help to reduce the continuing fragmentation of responsibility for devolution in Whitehall, which has had four separate departments handling devolution, for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the English regions. Merger of the Scotland and Wales Offices brings that down to three. We will not have a proper ‘centre’ in Whitehall looking after devolution until that has shrunk to one.”

So London, London, London knows best. Since we haven’t been ‘tidied up’ presumably devolution is a failure ...

I don't trust anything that the "independent" Constitution Unit do. Robert Hazell was awarded an CBE for "Services to Constitutional Reform" - presumably for his support for regional assemblies, oppoisition to an English parliament (or a referendum for the English to decide for themselves) and general New Labour toadyism.

They're so clearly biased and politically motivated it's unbelievable.

I suppose a CBE is appropriate because it's the British inner Empire that Hazell is attempting to save.